The Birthday Fairy

Happy Birthday to my baby, Mary Leona! I can't believe she has reached this milestone and yet seems to be so much older somehow. This morning, we all snuck into her room and woke her up (gently, since she is easily startled, and scaring the bejeesus out of a kid isn't the nicest way to wake her up on her birthday) and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. We had to sing it in Spanish, since Emma wanted to sing a "new" Birthday song, so Mary was a little confused for a stanza or two. She was also a little loopy since I had given her Benadryl in the middle of the night to help her runny nose and watery, itchy eyes. So for the first time through the song, she sat up and wobbled a bit, staring at us and shaking with the effort to understand why her family had waken her up with some sort of singing ritual and they were all speaking another language. In retrospect, maybe we should have done that a little differently. anyhow, once we sang in English and she realized what was going on, she got really excited. Then we let her open her presents from the family, which was difficult, since Emma wanted to "help" her so badly. And the gift that Emma had picked out for her was one the Emma, of course, wanted to play with. so fighting ensued a little earlier on this momentous occasion then any other day. Jim left for work and then fighting over the new toys escalated and finally crested the climax of Mommy Anger Point when Emma cut her hair. That was about 10 AM. I know it seems like a big jump, and the sequence even makes me think of an angry toddler, standing in defiance with scissors in one hand and a hank of hair in the other, saying, "Give me the toy or I SWEAR I'll cut it!!!". That is not what happened at all, although it is a funny image.

Today, Mary decided that she was a Big Girl. That's great, affirmations all around. Except that Big Girls do not wear diapers, and therefore, neither does Mary. I would normally ignore the pleadings, except that Mary has shown an amazing interest in using the toilet. For over a week now she has consistently had a BM success at a time that she asks to "go to the potty". So, I thought we might be able to roll with this and got out some training pants - the cotton ones with plastic outsides, to keep all the nasty stuff inside. That meant that when Mary announced it was time, there was no recourse but to drop everything and go into the bathroom - sitting and waiting for things to work like they should. Meanwhile, Emma, who was frustrated with the idea that it was a day centered around someone else, disappeared into the depths of the house and became quiet. After Mary had finished up her (successful) trip to the potty, Emma reappeared and I asked her what she was doing while I was helping Mary. Riding the rocking horse, she told me. That was a happy relief. And cutting her hair, she added, because it was driving her crazy. Sure enough, a telltale wisp of liberated hair was hanging below the rest of her hair. I followed the trail of hair snips upstairs to my bedroom, where the "childproof" doorhandle had been expertly beaten into submission with a single, well placed blow from a determined toddler. More hair, this path leading right to the bathroom, where a pile of lovely light brown hair lay in the middle of the carpet.


Then Mary had a couple of friends over for cupcakes and she continued to wear the princess dress up skirt she had opened that morning, because she insisted she was a "Birthday Princess" (who is a big girl and does not wear diapers), and the rest of the morning went off without unusual incident, except for the torturous screaming that occurred when I insisted on a diaper for nap time. But that's a normal thing with two toddlers in the house. And don't forget the Birthday Fairy that showed up this morning: